MILWAUKEE – Under a conceptual timeline from the Milwaukee County Transit System, the network’s second bus rapid transit line “CONNECT2” could be up and running in 2028.
But there’s a lot that needs to be determined before that point, and MCTS is asking those that would utilize the line to provide input.
At a virtual meeting Wednesday, MCTS shared the results of a two-year feasibility study conducted between 2020 and 2022. The project is still currently in the environmental review and design phase, but if brought to fruition would run north-south along much of the currently existing Purple Line route, with endpoints at the Bayshore Shopping Center and the Oak Creek Ikea store.
“Right now is where the conceptual bleeds into the design, and we want to get everyone’s feedback on how we can steer that design to make the best possible project” said MCTS Manager of Enhanced Transit David Locher.
Even with the implementation of BRT along the 27th Street corridor, Locher says CONNECT2 would not outright replace the Purple Line; an additional underlying local route would still exist.
Locher added that in a perfect setup, CONNECT2 would operate on 80 percent bus-only lanes. Factors considered when choosing where bus-only lanes would operate include current road usage, maintaining already existing characteristics of the roads, and business concerns.
Locher says MCTS is currently analyzing which buses would run on the route. At present, CONNECT1 operates a mixture of Clean Diesel buses and battery-electric buses, or BEBs. Last summer, the maker of the BEBs, Nova Bus, recalled the batteries used in the buses. That led to a temporary stoppage of the BEBs on the CONNECT1 route. “Ultimately…we do want to side on reliability. You don’t want to be there and wonder ‘Is my bus going to show up or not?’. Our commitment through all of this is to [ensure] that yes, it’s going to be there when it says it’s going to be there” said Locher.
According to MCTS marketing and communications manager Anna Schryver, data from 2023 shows the system as a whole recorded around 17 million passenger rides (the official annual report has not yet been published). The yearly total remains well below the pre-pandemic 28,972,674 passenger rides in 2019, which itself was the third of five straight years of declining ridership dating back to 2017.
Wednesday’s meeting was the second of three this week aimed at explaining the development process behind CONNECT2 and garnering public feedback. A final meeting will be held Thursday from 3 to 6pm at the Century City Tower, 4201 North 27th Street in Milwaukee.
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